


Slow Motion

by woollen_pharaohs



Category: Travelers (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Drabble Collection, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 05:49:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13229331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woollen_pharaohs/pseuds/woollen_pharaohs
Summary: An exploration of how Traveler 3326 learned how to live as Philip Pearson.





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

> a collection of three connected drabbles (although the second one is about 1k which probably means it doesn't count as a drabble lol) about what it might mean for a Historian to face freedom of choice. 
> 
> (I also wanted to explore why Phil would continue appearing the way he does, considering he has no people left that he needs to pretend to still be Phil in front of. Like, why does he continue to look So Good when he doesn't have to??)

Philip was selected as a child to train to become a historian. He is one of many selected who can memorise anything on a screen in 0.01 seconds. Numbers, images, text, audio, video. He trained for years to sharpen his mind. Sometimes he felt like an experiment, other times he felt like a superhuman. He knew he was never going to be as good as a supercomputer, but the human brain is a powerful thing and his ability to hold the history of the 21st century in his mind alone was invaluable to The Director’s grand plan. 

He trained for other things too. How to use a gun and how to use one in combat. How to use 21st century technology like computers and cell phones and appliances. They were even prepped for experiencing body dysmorphia. He was always good at the communication training sessions. How to communicate in 21st century lingo. But of all the travelers, the historians trained the most. Without a historian, a traveler cell would not be able to function. 

They trained in their cells. It was meant to increase team cohesion, but it wasn’t meant to go any further than that. He suspected that he was the only one who knew about Traveler 3468 and Traveler 3569’s sexual relations. They were clever about it, sneaky. But nothing went unnoticed in his presence. According to protocols at the time, he should have reported the nature of their relationship. But he kept the information to himself. He never understood why until he arrived in the 21st century, when the mission became something more, and less. And he learned what it meant to consider love and compassion over the rules governed by a machine. 


	2. (Music to travel through time to)

Before they arrived in the 21st century, the other four on his team knew him by number 3326 only. It didn’t matter if they remembered his face because they would have new ones in the 21st century anyway. But Philip remembers his team’s old faces. He remembers everyone from the future. Sometimes he sees Traveler 3468’s old face when MacLaren talks over the coms, or Traveler 0115 when Trevor drops by with takeout. It’s not necessary to remember their old faces. It’s something he should forget, but there are so many things that he can’t forget, even if he wants to.

Before traveling through time, he always felt like he didn’t know enough. He spent hours upon hours in a day memorising every digital record of the past, worried that missing one minor detail could endanger the mission. His mind was so full with knowledge about world events and death tolls and financial mappings and potential hosts.

But when he arrived in the 21st, he realised that there’s still plenty he doesn’t know. Things that he thought were frivolous. Inconsequential, even. And yet, when there’s no mission, protocol 5 comes into play. _In absence of direction, maintain your host’s life_. Who was Philip Pearson? A college-aged drop-out with a heroin addiction. Was there anything else to his host? What life could be maintained when he had overwritten the host’s personality and left his only friend who could tell him what Philip was like to OD on heroin.

He had to make do with what was leftover. A weak body riddled by addiction, something he’s still trying to recuperate from. A dingy home in a poorly lit garage - altered by decking it out with the tech he and his team would need to complete missions. That’s all that really mattered. Having a body to house his mind and shelter to protect himself. But he learned there was more to Philip. Though he may never know what his personality was like beforehand, he could gain an insight on his interests with the kinds of possessions he kept.

For one thing, there was the wardrobe filled with an assortment of clothes in a common style, often in black or dark gray, and a small collection of shoes resembling combat boots. Philip also wore his hair a certain way, which he decided to maintain. What he found most peculiar was the nose ring. He would rotate the ring when he was bored, listening to the music his host kept on the stereo and felt the thin metal slide through his nose.

In his time, there was no place for personal expression, either on the body or spatially. People were identified with a series of numbers. They had plain, shared quarters, with nothing for others to know which bed was his unless he was sleeping in it. Everything was utilitarian, uniform. Everything and everyone had a purpose. No one would have even dreamed of getting their nose pierced. And he had no idea that nose rings could get infected.

And there was so much more to learn about living in the 21st, and so much he could do on his own. When there were no missions, he learned how to be autonomous. What that _meant_. What that meant for the people walking around thinking that they had it too. He learned not to play with the nose ring, and to remove it once or twice a day and wash it with soap. He learned how much it must have hurt when he got his ears pierced for the first time. They got infected too because he learned what it was like to suffer from an addiction.

The piercings were just the start of it. After the body modifications came fashion, and music, and he began to love learning so much of this frivolity that it became a hobby. He had never been allowed to have a hobby before. It made him feel like an individual, separated from The Director’s cohesive web of players. As Philip Pearson, he had his part to play in the mission but he also had interests and likes and dislikes. And even a friend. A friend who helped him adopt a turtle. A  _turtle_.

And more. He learned what it was like to feel good about his appearance. To wear clothes that weren’t form fitting, but were baggy, and ‘trendy’ and what it meant to be _looked_ at. He learned that first from going outside. From the looks he got from just walking down the street, from the looks men and women alike gave him when he went to see musicians perform live. He saw sparks in their eyes, the flicker of attraction. But it was love that he first witnessed in Ray.

He’ll remember the gray hair that tapered from the side of Ray’s temples down to his jaw, the way it shortened into the stubble of his facial hair that spread over his lower face. He’ll always remember how many creases there were in Ray’s forehead when he peered up into his eyes. And he’ll never forget the asymmetry of Ray’s teeth and the way his tongue rolled underneath Phil’s cock.

He only had to worry about protocol 4 when he learned what it was like to experience fiery passion from a woman. From Jenny. _Do not reproduce_ . Ray was slow and gentle and somehow always left him wanting more, left him panting and heaving. And then, his first friend of the century, _left_ him. Ray turned out to just be his lawyer who was, for all intents and purposes, using him to get rich. Cue Jenny. Jenny who was beautiful. Intoxicating. Jenny who was rough and needy and left him hurting over how easily she played his trust.

Jenny was gone too. In the short time Philip Pearson had extended his life, he had no one else. So wasn’t it a little pathetic that Ray was the only person Ingram could possibly kidnap in order to hurt him? It’s sadder than having Grace kidnapped for Trevor, because at least they were friends. At least they _liked_ each other. All Ray was interested in was making a quick buck.  It took traveling to the 21st for Phil to learn that not all love is pure. That what he saw in Ray wasn’t honesty, but greed.


	3. Numb

People talked too slow far too often. He had heard, and read, every combination of words multiple times over and even though he couldn’t predict exactly what someone was going to say before they said it to him, he could always tell how they were going to finish. The blue helped with that. Made everyone talk faster and made his mind go numb where calculations were always running on overdrive.

He thought the blue was good; the drops were even better. He wasn’t an idiot, though. He knew he was just passing off an old addiction for a new one. But a couple of drops and it was like he was putting on prescription glasses for the first time. His visuals were more crisp, audio more refined. It took him longer to recall important information, but there was one thing drugs, regardless of the composition, helped him like nothing else could. They made his heart hurt less whenever the memory of what Ray had said to him decided to sear into his mind again. It was when the hostages had been released. He and his teammates had bolted from the helicopter as soon as it landed, and he’d ran to Ray and clasped his hands and Ray had said to him words that he’ll never forget, but hurts less with chemicals soaking into him. 

“Let’s not pretend we’re friends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it :) i'd love to hear what you thought!


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